


Birthdays

by a_shy_owl_lost_in_the_woods



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, During Evil Queen | Regina Mills's First Dark Curse, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:28:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29682585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_shy_owl_lost_in_the_woods/pseuds/a_shy_owl_lost_in_the_woods
Summary: It had simply never occurred to him, before, that maybe it was strange that he was the only one to have a birthday.
Relationships: Henry Mills/Peter Pan | Malcolm
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Birthdays

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be the prologue to a longer story I drafted but never got to actually write, so it's nothing special but I still thought it could work as a Henry-centric one-shot (with Canon-divergence at the end).
> 
> For context:  
> It is set in an AU in which during the casting of the first curse Pan, the lost boys and Wendy were all in the Enchanted forest (and so they got trapped in Storybrook).  
> Also in this AU Henry finds Emma way after than in canon (when he's fifteen, to be precise) (and for symmetry's sake (and because I forgot canon) Henry gets the book when he becomes ten.)
> 
> Not beta-tested and English is not my first language, so I apologize for any eventual error.
> 
> Enjoy ヽ((・∀・))ﾉ.

He had first realized that something was wrong on his eighth birthday.

All the guests had already left, the living room devoid of people except for him - his mother was busy in the kitchen, filling the fridge to a brim with all kinds of leftovers from the party while quietly muttering something that Henry didn't care enough to eavesdrop - and while looking over the gifts that he'd had received he'd realized, quite somberly for a child his age, that he had never wished a happy birthday to anybody in his life. It was natural, he supposed, that nobody his age had ever invited him to a birthday party (no child wanted to be the Mayor's kid's friend, it seemed) but still, he had never seen his mother celebrate her own, didn't even know when her birthday was. 

He had just then realized it had simply never occured to him, before, that maybe it was strange that he was the only one to have a birthday.

He had asked his mother, of course, some days later, and promptly she had responded that he was being silly, of course she had a birthday, and everybody in town too, obviously. 

Two weeks later his favourite teacher had excitedly announced that this year, for her birthday, she wanted to take them all to Granny's and buy them a cupcake each. 

(When Henry had asked how old she was she had pragmatically smiled and whispered to him that a lady never tells her age. He had found it stupid and promptly earned quiet chuckles when he'd told her so). 

Afterwards it had become kind of impossible for it to not be someone's birthday, everyone suddenly celebrating as if they'd always had. Henry had found it strange and somehow exhausting and after two months he'd told so to his mom. The birthdays remained, but still, they felt less frequent and for this he was grateful.

oOo 

When he became ten, his teacher (his teacher that even though he loved very much never seemed to age and always behaved as if in a daze, at least when she was talking to him) gave him a book as a birthday gift, a storybook, a leatherbound manoscript filled with words and drawings designed to keep him company. 

At the beginning, Henry had thought that it had been a product of Miss Blanchard's imagination, that she had written it just for him, to help him cope with the fact that he had no friends. He knew, had known for some time now, that his teacher pitied him, knew that most adults did - while the other children simply didn't care, the grown ups would always look at him with sad, pitiful glances that disappeard if he tried to meet their eyes with his own. He often thought that they were exaggerating, that he wasn't what they thought he was, that he was stronger.

Still he felt grateful to finally have something that could entertain him fully and completely, something that was just for his eyes. 

A world accessible to him only. 

He had read the fairytales avidly, read them all in a little over three months, the heavy book always at his side, so much so that not even a month in Granny had procured him a backpack just the right size for it. He had read all the fairytales and read them once more, and then twice, and on and on till he had come to know them all by heart. 

He had tried to insert himslef in some stories, here and there, his penmanship not pretty enough to actually be part of the book, but around his room could be found, scattered, drawings and diary pages filled with incredible stories and exciting adventures, all sporting him as their brave protagonist.

One thing he had always liked about the book was the crazy number of stories it contained. He'd feel he had finally settled on his favourite story when suddenly his eye would fall on a particular page and he would doubt himself all over again and read the book once more from the top. He found it exciting, searching every page for something that would win his heart over and always finding something new that would catch his eye.

oOo

When he became twelve he started drawing parallels between the characters in the book and the people he knew. 

The first match he had found, almost incidentally, had been between Miss Blanchard and Snow White. He had been talking to his teacher about the book, which she now thought as His Book, and offhandedly she had commented how lovely Snow White looked and how strong she was, to be able to go on despite all. Henry had looked intentedly at the page and then at his teacher and somehow, he thought, it just made sense, it all made sense. 

The book ended with a cast curse, a bittersweet finale where everyone in the Enchanted forest had fallen victim to the Evil Queen, while the Charming's child and Pinocchio escaped through a magical tree. What the curse did wasn't specified in the book, of this Henry was sure, and so he had started to connect the dots. 

His teacher, the beautiful and graceful Miss Mary Margaret Blanchard was in truth the courageous and just Snow White. His mother, his terrifying mother that everybody in town feared and respected, was the Evil Queen, now truly the only recognized ruler of the land. Marco was, of course, Geppetto. His therapist Jiminy Cricket. Ruby and Granny were Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother. And so on and so forth.

At first he had put on a bulletin board in his room with everyone's picture put up and their fairytale's name neatly written underneath, soft whool strings connecting the pictures that belonged to the same story. 

After having seen his not-mother (the Evil Queen) in the kitchen that same afternoon, though, manicured hands quickly cutting an apple turnover into small slices, he had opted to bring it down and make a smaller version inside his diary, so that nobody but himself could see it.

oOo

The day before he had turned fourteen Henry had decided that he wanted more in life. He liked working on his Enchanted Forest diagram (he had called it operation Ferret in his mind) but he also wanted to "live a little", as Dr. Hopper liked to say. 

He had recently become friend with one Angela Barrie (he was almost sure she was Wendy Darling from the story of Peter Pan) and she had invited him to a party at the pier. 

At first he had gently declined, knowing his mother would have never allowed him to go, but then he had talked to Dr. Hopper and he had looked at his book and he had thought "Why not?".

And so he had stood for little over fifteen minutes under a lamplight near the Rabbit Hole, not really sure if he was too early or perhaps too late and then Angela had appeared and whisked him away. 

She had led him to the abandoned Sardine Factory, loud music pounding its way out of the building's broken windows, and Henry had felt exhilarated. Once inside Angela had left him rather quickly, going to get them drinks and never coming back, but he had soon found out it hadn't mattered that much anyway. 

After a while he had gone in the same direction she'd had, grabbed a brandless bottle of something from a large crate and poured himself three fingers of the non-defined beverage in a red paper cup, excited to finally become what Dr. Hopper called a "rebellious teen". He had downed the cup in one go, loudly coughing a second after, feeling his throat start to burn like pure fire. 

He had started looking at the crowd then, searching for what, he hadn't known, the heat of the room becoming increasingly more oppressing every passing second, and he hadn't been able to see anything but faceless teens all grinding against one other, the lights above doing a really poor job at making the scene even a little less confusing. 

With the now empty paper cup still firmly held in one hand, Henry had gone back to the Factory's entrance, the so-called-party-but-actually-a-rave becoming less and less exciting the more it went on. 

And then, he had slipped outside, the fresh air violently blowing against his red cheeks and the pale moon illuminating the almost deserted beach, and finally he felt like he could breathe. 

On the shore, not too far, a figure had stood and Henry'd thought it'd looked like a shadow without a owner, and then it, he, had turned, not quite looking at Henry but still gazing in his general direction and Henry had felt like never before, everything around him going quiet and incredibly still, as if time itself had stopped. 

He'd had just the time to realize who it was before he had felt the Sheriff's firm hand drag him away from the scene.


End file.
